How to "escape" the emoji cheat sheet conversion?

[kverb]

Sorry this isn't really specific to congo, but i'm having trouble finding an answer to this.

I would like for certain sequences to NOT convert into an emoji. Here is an example in markdown:

```command -with -argument -like -c:a:0```

where i want -c:a:0 to be preserved, as-is; not be converted into c🅰️0

I was hoping there would be a simple way to escape it, perhaps wrapped in braces, or with an extra ':' but i haven't discovered any.

If this can be done per expression, that would be ideal, since the emoji conversion can continue automatically, but turning it off per article would be fine too.

[kverb]

a zero-width space can be inserted to break the auto-conversion: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/50657698/how-can-i-stop-github-from-rendering-emojis-in-markdown#50662126
This is ... ok for now, since the rendered text is copy-able with the space removed (so copy+paste works as expected), but is a little easier to miss if copying directly from the markdown.